islamic-jihad-legacy-of-forced-conversion-imperialism-slavery

Islamic JihadWhat were these slaves, from a few to many, doing in the household of the ordinary, even poor,Muslim owners? Obviously, they were employed in every conceivable type of labor and chores possible:household works of every kind and anything that required physical exertion, such as herding the animals andworking in the backyards and farms. The slaves, thus, enabled their owners to lead a life of comfort, ease andindulgence free of labor. According to Lewis, ‘Slaves, most of them black Africans, appeared in large numberin economic projects. From early Islamic times, large numbers of black slaves were employed in draining thesalt flats of southern Iraq. Poor conditions led to a series of uprisings. Other black slaves were employed inthe gold mines of Upper Egypt and Sudan, and in the salt mines of Sahara.’ 824 Segal adds: ‘(They) dugditches, drained marshland, cleared salt flats of their crust; they cultivated sugar, and cotton in plantations;and they were accommodated in camps that contained five hundred to five thousand each.’ 825 Because ofthese deadly uprisings, Muslim rulers, later on, were cautious about employing slaves in large congregationson specific projects.In Islamic Guinea and Sierra Leone, the masters of "slave town" employed their slaves in agriculturalfarms in the nineteenth century. 826 The slaves of Sultan Sayyid Sa’id (d. 1856) in East Africa ‘labored in thegreat clove plantations on Zanzibar and Pemba islands…’ 827 Segal quotes Nehemia Levtzion that ‘‘In thefifteenth century, slaves were in great demand for expanding plantation agriculture in Southern Morocco.’ Inthe nineteenth century, adds Segal, ‘when the demand for cotton was high and supply of slaves from Sudanwas plentiful, they were used to increase production of crop in Egypt, while large numbers of slaves… wereused for grain production on the East African coast and in the clove plantation on the islands of Zanzibar andPemba.’’ 828 In the nineteenth century, some 769,000 black slaves were engaged in the Arab plantations ofZanzibar and Pemba, while 95,000 of them were shipped to the Arab plantations in the Mascareme Islandsfrom East Africa alone. 829SEX-SLAVERY & CONCUBINAGEThe female slaves worked as domestic maids and in the backyards, while the young and pretty ones also hadto provide sex to their masters. Thus, they not only provided menial services and pleasure to masters, but alsohelped swell the Muslim populace through procreation. Sex-slavery is not a negligible institution in Islam;Allah has shown utmost seriousness about its practice by repeatedly reminding Muslims about it in the Quran.Prophet Muhammad himself had taken at least three slave-girls as his concubines, namely Juwairiya of BanuMustaliq [Bukhari 3:46:717], Rayhana of Banu Qurayza, and Maria, sent by the Egyptian governor to pacifyMuhammad after receiving his threatening letter. From his large share of captives, he also distributed slavegirlsamongst his companions for keeping as concubines. In one instance, he gave Ali (his son-in-law and thefourth caliph), Uthman b. Affan (his son-in-law and the third caliph) and Omar ibn Khattab (his father-in-lawand the second caliph) a slave-girl each. 830 In explaining the institution of slavery on the basis of Quranicverses 23:5–6, brilliant Islamic scholar Sayyid Abul Ala Maududi (d. 1979) wrote:824. Lewis (2000), p. 209825. Segal, p. 42826. Rodney W (1972) In MA Klein & GW Johnson eds., p. 158827. Gann L (1972), In Ibid, p. 182828. Ibid, p. 44–45829. Ibid, p. 60–61830. Ibn Ishaq, p. 592–93; Al-Tabari, Vol. IX, p. 29235